This is a response to a thread that the humanist preacher started but if the response is good enough it will become a series. Plastination and cryopreservation aren't the answers Cryopreservation actually destroys the body at a cellular level as well as creates a bunch of fractures in the brain. The fracturing in the brain is pretty obvious but the destruction at a cellular level isn't visible to the naked eye.

Revival in the future depends on a perfect storm of events occurring, and this process of putting yourself in a suspended state is really something that should be done as a last resort if at all. I'll get more into the problems of cryonics in a future thread.

Moore's Law

Author and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been extremely accurate at predicting the pace of technology as well as how and when future advances would come about. His predictions have been based on Moore's law which has been pretty accurate at predicting how fast technology would advance, and has used Moore's law as well as applied it to everything he considers to be an information technology. and looked at technology in the works and on the cutting edge to make his predictions.

All of the bridges I mention to reach immortality depend on Moore's law holding up and being applicable to everything deemed an information technology by Ray Kurzweil,

Bridge to immortality

Sciences answers to immortality depend on a number of bridges meant to get you to the next. Immortality involves pulling ourselves up by the boot straps. Bridge 1 is how you survive long enough to get to bridge 2. Bridge 1 is what is available to us now to make us as healthy as possible. Eat right, exercise get regular and in depth doctor's appointments to really keep on top of your health. It's also advised to keep a calorie restricted diet because it is the only scientifically proven way to actually extend lifespan. Ray Kurzweil actually takes this aggressive approach to health seriously because he believes in his predictions pretty seriously his vitamin regimen is inhuman and said to consist of hundreds of different vitamins. He is in his 70s and has to go above and beyond if he expects to make it to bridge 2 though.

Bridge 1 takes us to bridge 2 in about 15 years if my book Transcend by Kurzweil is to be believed. This is where Kurzweil predicts a biotech revolution will take place where we can literally manipulate our DNA and biology well enough to buy ourselves a few more decades of life expectancy.

Bridge 2 takes us to bridge three 20 years later. Bridge 3 is the nanotech revolution where we will have nanobots swimming through our bloodstream repairing damage at a cellular level as well as replacing our need to have a heart, sleep eat healthy food etc,. This revolution in nanotechnology should be good enough to allow us to live indefinite lifespans

Developed nations if you don't account for migration seem to have a declining population and other things to consider would be that if the rest of the world matched the United state's crop production than we could feed 10 billion people on half the farm land we currently use.

I think that we need to look at this differently though. It's unethical to let people die just because we fear overpopulation. We should still seek to cure aging as well as advance in areas that contribute to us gaining a possible indefinite lifespan. You'd never see people arguing for us to allow Aids patients to go untreated because it would curb population growth and yet they are okay with the leading cause of death (aging) to take millions of lives every day.

I think that no matter how advanced technology becomes population growth will stall at 9 billion people (based on UN reports), but that's not the point. We need to work on curing aging and we can address the problems as they come up. The same way we do when other major improvements in technology come about.

Immortality would suck

Even with an indefinite lifespan almost nobody would live past 2,000 years old. When you calculate the chances of somebody having an accident, being murdered or killing themselves this is what life expectancy would look like.

That's fine if you think immortality would suck. Nobody is asking you to inject the nanobots into your bloodstream to achieve an indefinite lifespan. You can opt out. The whole point of chasing these advancements is to add options to the table. Transhumanists don't want to take the option of death off the table they just want you to be able to have more control of when and how you die. If you live to 278 years old and decide you want to opt out that should be your right, but on the other hand if I want to pursue physical immortality that is none of your business.

Final

I kinda rushed this one out if citations are needed for anything just let me know and I'll provide them. My next topic I'd like to dive into the problems with cryopreservation or Transhumanism as a cult or maybe even go more into the problems with transhumanism. Let me know if there is anything in particular you want to see.

At 10/13/2014 11:31:53 PM, Wylted wrote:Even with an indefinite lifespan almost nobody would live past 2,000 years old. When you calculate the chances of somebody having an accident, being murdered or killing themselves this is what life expectancy would look like.

Although with the nanobots option, it seems likely that we won't only be immortal, but have everlasting youth. Do you think that, due to eternal youth, people could be significantly more happy and healthy, and therefore the chances of committing suicide or dying because of illness would significantly drop?

At 10/13/2014 11:31:53 PM, Wylted wrote:Even with an indefinite lifespan almost nobody would live past 2,000 years old. When you calculate the chances of somebody having an accident, being murdered or killing themselves this is what life expectancy would look like.

Although with the nanobots option, it seems likely that we won't only be immortal, but have everlasting youth. Do you think that, due to eternal youth, people could be significantly more happy and healthy, and therefore the chances of committing suicide or dying because of illness would significantly drop?

It's mostly young people who commit suicide and with the added life expectancy I'd expect that older people would kill themselves at a slightly higher rate. I see no reason that deaths from car accidents or homicides will go down. I think it's reasonable to assume with an indefinite lifespan a life expectancy of 2,000 would be the norm. 3rd world countries would have the same life expectancies.

The 2,000 year life expectancy is just calculated assuming no illnesses which is probably unreasonable so it's probably a bit over optimistic.

When transhumanists talk of immortality what they really mean is a indefinite lifespan but an indefinite lifespan does give you hope of being around long enough to see some advances in technology to hopefully become gods.

What I'm discussing is what's commonly referred to as a Kurzweilian merger but there is a actually some hope and fear of a super AI such as the 1 seen in the movie Transcendence comes about which will create a virtual heaven on Earth.